13 of the coolest travel 'gimmicks'

By Tamara Hinson, for CNN

Updated 0252 GMT (0952 HKT) October 14, 2013

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Gyroscopic pool table – Royal Caribbean's cruise ship, Radiance of the Seas, has the solution for those considering a game of pool in rough seas. Its gyroscopic pool table has what's known as gyroscopic self-correcting underpinnings, which means that, in rough seas, when the boat tilts one way, the pool table tilts the other to keep everything on the level.

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Wine angels – Once visitors to the Radisson Blu Stansted Airporthotel's bar have selected their wine, an acrobatic "wine angel" steps into a harness and retrieves the bottle from among 4,000 in the 13-meter-high (42 feet) wine tower.

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Undersea restaurant – Ithaa (meaning Mother of Pearl) is an underwater restaurant in the Maldives. The acrylic shell of the restaurant was constructed in Singapore before being shipped to Rangalis island, where it can now be found five meters (16 feet) below sea level.

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Hotel Montaña Magica – This Chilean hotel is circular and volcano-shaped and located in the middle of the jungle. It's also covered with greenery, and at various points throughout the day it erupts, sending water cascading down the side of the hotel.

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Blue screen hotel room – The Blue Line room at the Gladstone Hotel, Toronto, has walls adorned with silhouettes of scantily clad women and cowboys against bright blue walls. However, it's no ordinary blue. The shade is chroma-key blue, the color used for blue screens, allowing guests to video themselves against the walls and digitally insert their own backdrops at a later date.

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Vietnamese restrooms – Bill Bensley, the architect responsible for this Vietnamese hotel, has designed more than 100 resorts and hotels in 26 countries. He was eager to incorporate traditional Vietnamese design when he created the Danang Sun Peninsula resort, and the notion extended to the restrooms.

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Intelligent elevator – Traveling between hotel floors is an interactive experience at Sydney's QT Hotel. The hi-tech elevator uses sensors to work out how many people are in the elevator and plays a relevant song from its extensive discography.

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Glass-bottomed cruise ship walkway – This walkway extends eight meters (28 feet) beyond the edge of Princess Cruises' Royal Princess ship and is the first of its kind to be found aboard a cruise ship. Those who choose to "walk the plank" have nothing to fear -- the glass is more than an inch thick.

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Glass-bottomed pool – At the Holiday Inn Shanghai Kangqiao, the glass-bottomed pool, located on the 24th floor, measures 30 meters (98 feet) in length and half of the pool protrudes out from the building over the street below.

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Revolving hotel – Marmara Antalya is the world's first revolving hotel. The 2,750-ton building floats in a tank holding 478 tons of water. The hotel's three lower floors are submerged, and it's the three floors above ground which rotate, with the help of six electric motors.

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Vegetation wall – Changi Airport's green wall, in terminal three, is the world's largest vertical garden, measuring 300 meters (984 feet) by 14 meters (45 feet). It contains more than 10,000 plants. There are four water features and plants are secured to metal cables attached to an enormous framework, which allows their position to be altered.

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Underwater escalator – Visitors to Taiwan's Hualien Farglory Ocean Park can travel through the aquarium on an undulating airtight escalator as sharks, rays and other creatures swim above their heads.

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Cat-obsessed railway station – If you need proof of how much the Japanese love their cats, a journey on the Wakayama Electric Railway is in order. Images of cats adorn the interior and exterior of the train, the Wakayama Electric Railway's official station master is a cat called Tama and the station is shaped like a cat.

Story highlights

Elevator at QT Hotel, Sydney, detects people inside and plays different songs accordingly

"Wine angels" at Radisson Blu in England retrieve bottles by flying up on wires

Cruises are good; cruises with a pool table that levels itself as the ship rolls are awesome.

Here are some of the best gimmicks -- which we're defining as not strictly necessary but nevertheless fun things -- to be found in the travel world today.

What great innovations have you noticed on your travels? Tell us below.

Gyroscopic pool table: Royal Caribbean Radiance of the Seas

Royal Caribbean's Radiance of the Seas has the perfect solution for those considering a game of pool in rough seas.

Its gyroscopic pool table has what's known as gyroscopic self-correcting underpinnings, which means that, in rough seas, when the boat tilts one way, the pool table tilts the other to keep everything on the level.

The Blue Line room's walls are adorned with silhouettes of scantily clad women and cowboys against bright blue walls.

However, it's no ordinary blue. The shade is chroma-key blue, the color used for blue screens, allowing guests to video themselves against the walls and digitally insert their own backdrops at a later date.

Other rooms include the Felt Room, which resembles a sound-proofed chamber, and the Canadiana room, which has enormous forest murals.

If you need proof of how much the Japanese love their cats, a journey on the Wakayama Electric Railway may be in order.

Images of cats adorn the interior and exterior of the train and the Wakayama Electric Railway's official station master is a cat called Tama.

Tama is also credited with saving the railway -- before her appointment, the railway was struggling financially, but tourists now come from all over the world to visit Tama and purchase a range of Tama-themed gifts.

Bill Bensley, the architect responsible for this Vietnamese hotel, has designed more than 100 resorts and hotels in 26 countries.

He was eager to incorporate traditional Vietnamese design when he created the Danang Sun Peninsula resort, and this notion even extended to the restrooms, which are rigged out to look like enormous pieces of antique wooden furniture.